


Choice of Calling

by pocket_infinity



Series: Flame & Frost, Heart & Soul [7]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26022004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocket_infinity/pseuds/pocket_infinity
Summary: The two void twins have been around for a good bit of time, and their three parents—though mainly the White Lady and the Pale King—figured that the least they could do was give the children the ability to choose their names.The only problem is the two kids figuring out what to choose.
Relationships: Grimm/The Pale King (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Knight, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King, The Pale King/White Lady (Hollow Knight)
Series: Flame & Frost, Heart & Soul [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857532
Comments: 8
Kudos: 114





	Choice of Calling

**Author's Note:**

> god i loved writing this one. so soft.

A shriek of terror ran through the palace’s halls, loud and shrill as it echoed off the metal so perfectly that it managed to bend around three different hallways before finally catching the room that housed the Pale King, the White Lady, and Herrah. All three froze at the sound, Herrah’s fur standing on end on instinct. Venom was already beginning to drip from her mouth when she began to speak.

“Who the hell is screeching in your castle, and why are they so damn close?” She asked.

“That was, actually, rather far away, I believe,” the White Lady said as she twisted towards the door.

“Oh really now?” Herrah responded. “Sounded real loud for someone far away.”

“Everything here is metal or open, Queen Herrah,” the Pale King started, not looking at her as he stood up and began to walk towards the door. “Sound carries much better than it does in your nests.”

“What he means,” the White Lady said as Herrah began to bare her fangs, “is that the sound could have—and, in all likelihood, was—very far away.”

“And you’re still not concerned?” Herrah asked, lowering herself back to her seat and closing her mouth, though she did keep her eyes narrowed.

“No, we most certainly are…” the King muttered as he opened the door, looking left and then right at the two Great Knights, Isma and Ogrim, who stood guard. “If you could go investigate that, we would appreciate it,” The Pale King said to them. They looked at each other before nodding and marching off down the hall.

“There’s really no need, ‘your majesty’,” a familiar, rough voice said from the other end just as the knights vanished around the corner.

“Grimm,” the wyrm said, lowering his voice and turning to face him. “I love you, but I’m in a negoti-” he froze when he saw the other god, or, more specifically, the little creature that Grimm was holding.

His hand was tightly clamped around a small off-white cloak, one of the Pale King’s children suspended by it—the one with the forked horns right at the end. The little child wriggled and squirmed in the air before Grimm shifted his grip to hold them from under the arms. They only fought harder after that.

“Excuse us,” the King said urgently before stepping out of the meeting room, leaving the root and Herrah to just stare at each other for a moment.

“More tea?” The queen eventually asked.

“How long do you think he’ll be this time?” Herrah asked. “Four cups?”

“I hope only two,” the White Lady replied as she refilled the spider’s cup.

“Wanna bet?” Deepnest’s queen responded.

“...I’ll wager a delicate flower on three cups,” the White Lady said after a brief pause.

“Five bundles of weaver silk,” Herrah replied.

“Then it’s settled,” the queen of Hallownest said as a smile crossed her face. “Now all that’s left is to find out who’s right.”

\---

“Oh good gods, Grimm, _please_ don’t hold them like that!” The Pale King fussed as he walked over.

“They’re _fine_ , I’m great with kids,” he replied.

“Then why are they squirming so much?” The King asked.

“Because they don’t wanna be held right now,” Grimm said.

“Ugh, just give them to me,” the Pale King remarked before taking the child from him, proceeding to cradle the little thing in his lower arms as he stared down at it lovingly. It kept squirming.

“See! Still trying to escape,” Grimm commented.

“Not now, Grimm; why did you even have them in the first place?” The wyrm inquired, gently scratching their forehead with one of his claws to try to calm them down. It was mildly successful, at best.

“The scream-”

“They _spoke_ ?! That was _them_?!” The Pale King asked, his voice bouncing around the room several times over as his glow brightened, and, for a moment, it seemed to, at least partially, calm the child.

“No, no—I mean I _wish_ , but it wasn’t them. Just a retainer—Julia, I think?” Grimm said, scratching his chin. “But whatever. Little one snuck up on her—‘Like a little ghost,’ she said.”

“And that scared her bad enough to scream like that?” The Pale King half-said as he scratched the child’s head a bit more before handing them back to Grimm once they’d begun to calm down.

“You can’t honestly tell me you wouldn’t be at least a _little_ freaked out if you turned around and saw a little child you don’t know just following you silently,” Grimm replied, and the child nuzzled into his warm body as he held them for a few moments. “Aww.”

The Pale King’s eyes softened at the sight. “Well,” he said. “I’ve got a meeting to get back to. Can you try to put them to bed?”

“Sure thing, my wyrm,” Grimm said, planting a kiss on the King’s cheek and getting him to blush as he scrubbed it away. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yes,” the King replied, smiling.

\---

That was the void-born heir’s first incident, and things only got worse (or better, from their perspective) from there. It started out small, the occasional scare as they followed other retainers around only to slip away the moment they were caught, but it didn’t take long for their plans to become more intricate. They’d get into storage closets and cleaning rooms and shift all of the things around ever so slightly before clambering up to some high place and simply waiting. They just sat there for gods know how long, presumably staring at the door, until someone came in. And then they’d wait some more, staying statue-still until that person either noticed them or started to leave the room, at which point the younger twin would knock some object off the shelf to call the person back into the room and shift their position.

Then it almost became a back-and-forth game, the retainers trying to secure the upper shelves, cabinets, and closets, only for the child to figure a way to slip back up and back in, seemingly leaving no evidence as to how they managed it. It got to the point where genuinely every single door in the castle had a lock on it, only for them to mysteriously open around the time that the younger heir seemed to disappear.

And when their parents tried to get involved, things only went more sideways. The wyrm would find that random bits and baubles vanished from his workshop; the root’s plants went missing. Even when they grounded the youngest royal, locking them in a small room with nothing but a window, they’d find the child gone within twenty minutes, so they began to lock the windows. They were fools to think that that would work for more than half an hour, and the parents quickly amassed a collection of broken locks, some of them with merely broken inner workings, but others had been snapped clean in half. The White Lady had the idea to put them in one of the few rooms without a window; she’d return to find vent grates broken open within five minutes.

Even Grimm couldn’t manage to track the little child down, finding himself completely clueless as to where they went. He had tracked hard-to-find children within the Troupe many, many times, but the little ghost of a baby left genuinely nothing to go off of other than a few broken parts and maybe an open window.

Scolding proved to be completely ineffective, as well, simply because it had no effect. The child didn’t go destroy things out of spite, they merely seemed to have no response to it other than to keep going and scaring the retainers half to death every other day.

At one point, the Pale King stumbled across the rather impressive stash of “borrowed” items the child had collected, ranging from plants to whole machines to cleaning tools to a full-on Troupe torch. Those were quickly taken and returned, only to disappear again a small time after, with the exception of the torch.

Grimm suggested the idea of rewarding them for _not_ stealing at one point, and that proved to be the worst idea of the bunch, as cinnamon buns started going missing on the same day that he first tried it. So, on top of the screams of terror from the cleaning staff, the frustrated shouts of the chefs now also echoed through the palace’s halls.

It wasn’t a lack of communication, either, as, when not busy getting their hands on anything within a five-mile radius, the younger twin would respond to any questions in simple sign language. It wasn’t necessarily _proper_ signing, but it conveyed meaning well enough.

Even stranger than anything else, however, was the fact that, despite how rebellious the child was, they were perfectly punctual for both bedtime and their lessons with Monomon’s assistant. Furthermore, they seemed intently focused and engaged during both of those activities, especially with writing, reading, and history, though they were sometimes late for sign language, almost always arrived with crumbs on their hands, and were consistently distracted during math and science.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t the parents, but actually the children’s instructor who figured out the consistency between the two things: stories. The White Lady always had a brief story to tell the twins before bed, and the lessons in reading always contained, in some form, a story. History was a subject composed _entirely_ of stories.

Everyone in the palace was about ready to tear their shell open when the royal parents finally managed to come to an agreement with their child: the pranks were non-negotiable, but the younger twin agreed to not steal things and return what they had in exchange for an extra story at bedtime. This proved to be stable enough, and, with the stealing finished, the palace began to take the child’s little pranks as a breath of fresh air to break up the daily routine. Their title of “little ghost” only stuck harder as time passed on. 

Then, one day, during their daily writing lesson, the younger twin signed a practice letter with the title of “Ghost.” Their teacher paused for a moment upon finishing his reading of the exercise, looking back at the younger void twin and smiling before carefully folding it up and placing it in his pocket. When their father arrived to shepherd the two off to their mother for a bit of time in the gardens, the teacher passed the letter on to him. The King managed to read the letter later, after he’d finished sifting through the mountain of inane requests from the City of Tears and the few rather reasonable ones from outward-lying settlements.

“Little one?” He asked later that night as he closed the storybook. Both children leaned up to look at him, almost completely synchronized. “Uh… _little_ little one,” he said, and the older twin set their head down.

“?” The younger heir signed.

“I had a question about the letter you wrote for your lesson today,” he replied, taking the paper out of his pocket and unfolding it. “You signed it ‘Ghost’-”

The little twin perked up at the mention, jittering as they signed out a few more words: “It thing retainers say! I like it.”

“Do you want to be called Gho-”

The child nodded profusely, jumping out of bed as they did. “Yesyesyesyesyesyes,” they signed.

“Alright, alright,” the wyrm said as he gently lifted them from under their arms before setting them back down in bed. “Then sleep well, Ghost.”

“Will you tell mama and fire dad?” They signed quickly.

“Of course,” the wyrm replied, scratching their forehead with one claw. “Now good night, you two. Rest well.” He smiled for a moment before stepping out of the room, taking their lumafly lantern with him.

Silence lasted for the rest of the night within the room, but that certainly didn’t keep Ghost and their sibling from talking.

 _How did you think of your name?_ The older sibling asked.

 _Heard people say. Sounded right._ Ghost replied. _Do you want name?_

 _Yes, I do._ Their sibling thought.

 _I can make for you!_ Ghost offered.

 _I would like that, if you would._ The other twin replied.

 _Yes yes yes yes anything for big sib._ The younger one responded.

 _Can we wait until tomorrow?_ They asked.

 _Sure!!_ Ghost thought.

_Thank you._

\---

The next morning started very familiarly to all the others for the parents; the Pale King woke up snuggled between Grimm and the White Lady, safe and sound as ever. He waited there for a long while, closing his eyes again and letting himself sink into their arms (and tendrils, in his wife’s case) for comfort. If he could’ve stayed like that forever, he would have, but there was a kingdom to run and people to serve and nobility to pretend to be interested in and a thousand other things. Oh, but moving would mean disturbing his partners, and he could hardly do that to them, could he?

“Well for starters, I’m not asleep,” Grimm whispered behind him. “And neither is she, I don’t think.”

“No, indeed, I am not,” the root replied, opening her crystal blue eyes.

“Oh…” the Pale King said, opening his own and staring into hers for a moment before she leaned in and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“Good morning, love,” she said.

“Good morning…” he mumbled, curling in on himself a bit more. His tail swished under the covers as it moved to between his legs.

“Alright,” Grimm said, sitting up and pulling the blankets off of the wyrm’s shoulders by accident. The King shivered at the feel. “So sorry, darling,” Grimm said as he pulled them back up, “but am I getting the kids this morning?” He stretched his arms.

“Please do,” the wyrm mumbled, rolling over to push his back into his wife’s embrace as he closed his eyes. “And don’t forget to use Ghost’s name.”

“Don’t worry, my wyrm, I remember.”

“Thank you…” the Pale King said as he went quiet. Both of his lovers’ eyes softened as he pushed his face into the pillow.

“Thank you, Grimm,” the White Lady said.

“It’s a pleasure, honestly,” Grimm said with a shrug before pausing. “You know how long he was up?”

“Eighteen hours,” the root replied. “I had to pull him out of his chair by force again.”

“Did he squirm?”

“He very much did,” the White Lady said with her signature gentle smile. “Just as cute as ever.”

“Aww,” Grimm said, pulling the covers back to about where they were before he’d gotten up.

“I’m not asleep again yet, you know,” the wyrm said.

“I know,” Grimm responded. “Make sure he gets enough sleep, ‘kay?”

The White Lady giggled. “I will, Grimm. Good luck with the children.”

“Good luck with _him_ ,” Grimm responded with a grin, walking over to the door. “See you soon, love.”

“Bye,” the wyrm barely even mumbled, still face-down in the pillow.

Grimm smiled as he stepped through the door, wandering out into the not-quite-crowded halls of the palace. The occasional retainer brushed by as he walked down towards the room where the children slept; it wasn’t a long walk, of course, but any walk was enough time for him to stare up at the beams and arches of metal, forming a sturdy yet open frame for him, his wyrm, and the root to live in. And their children too, now. He breathed out, and a part of him wished it was the dead of night so that he could’ve heard the sound bounce off the walls around him and echo through each and every hall. He shook his head wistfully at the thought. There were children to go wake, anyways—assuming they weren’t awake already. He hardly stopped as he arrived at their door, casually twisting the handle and stepping through in a fluid motion.

Ghost was already waiting for him right there, quite literally bouncing up and down before they started patting his legs. The older of the twins was standing patiently behind them, both arms folded under their cloak as they appeared almost statue-like with their stillness. 

Grimm squinted at them for a moment, pulling and stretching at nightmares in yet another effort to see if he could finally get something—anything, really—from them. A splitting headache was thrown back at him the moment he got anywhere near what could be considered the heir’s mind. He winced, one of his hands going up to rub the side of his head.

In an instant, the older twin’s hands were out of their cloak as they flourished perfectly-shaped signs in rapid yet comprehensible succession.

“I’m sorry, papa,” they signed. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, no, you’re fine, little one,” Grimm replied before looking down at the younger twin and hoisting them up. 

“Have name!” They signed right next to his face.

“Ghost! Isn’t it?” Grimm replied with a smile, and they responded by throwing their little arms around him as best they could. “I love it,” he said to them before turning back to the older child. Their hands began to move again as he looked at them.

“Are you certain I haven’t done anything wrong?” They signed.

“Hundred percent,” Grimm replied, setting Ghost down. “Now, we’ve gotta get you two to your first lesson today.”

“Which one which one which one?” Ghost signed.

“I believe it’s history today,” Grimm replied, and Ghost’s arms started shaking before they rushed out the door. The older twin simply nodded and followed as Grimm held it open for them.

The three continued down the hall together, Ghost flying to anything that caught their eye while the older sibling stayed right by Grimm’s side. He gently rubbed between their horns before scratching the top of their head. They leaned into both touches, so Grimm kept going with them until the trio finally reached the palace’s library. The area was decently empty, save for the occasional retainer rushing in or out with some random book.

“Alright, you two,” Grimm said, finally pulling his hand away from the older twin as Ghost rushed in to find their mentor. He stepped in after them, catching sight of Ghost running to a table almost dead in the middle of the room. A lone pillbug sat at it with a pile of books next to him and his hand folded over each other.

“Ah, royal consort Grimm,” he said, standing and bowing.

“Good to see you too, Quirrel,” Grimm replied. “It’s history first today, right?”

“Indeed it is!” Quirrel said, looking at Ghost as they patted his leg. “And I can see you’re just as excited as I, little one.”

 _Oh thank gods._ Grimm thought to him. _I told Ghost it was history today, and I’m half-certain they’d never let it go if I was wrong._

Quirrel’s head snapped away from Ghost as he looked around the room for a moment.

“Ah,” Grimm said, scratching the side of his head. “It’s early. Forgot I can’t do that with most people.”

The scholar paused for a moment. “So is that just-”

“Yeah, it’s just a thing. I can explain more later if you want, but for now,” he gently patted the older child on the back, and they walked over to the table, “I think you might wanna get going before Ghost starts bouncing off the walls.”

“Ghost…” Quirrel said, turning to face the younger sibling. “Is that-”

They nodded profusely before the question was even finished.

Quirrel chuckled with a smile. “Very well, then,” he said.

“One of us will be back to get them at the usual time,” Grimm said, waving at the children before slipping back around the corner only to return a moment later. “Oh, and thanks for always being here on-time,” he said to Quirrel.

“You are quite welcome, sir,” he responded before Grimm vanished in a puff of smoke. “Now, let’s get started…” he said to the twins as he opened a book.

\---

Time passed like a river for the older twin; it always had. Sometimes it moved quickly, like something was pushing it by quickly so that they couldn’t grab a single moment. Other times it was nearly a dead stop, almost stagnant in how slowly it passed. Some days would be one of the extremes; others would be the other. But most were somewhere between, oscillating between the two depending on the activity.

Sitting on their father’s lap in his workshop, however, they found themself with a new, peculiar state: it was both at the same time. Everything felt half-swimmy to them as their hands continued to slot parts into place in a little music box they were constructing with the help of their father. The act of inventing was speeding time up, true, but at the same time, they could feel their insides twisting and swirling at the thought of what they had to say to their palest parent, and that slowed everything to a crawl.

“Perfect!” Their father said, shocking them out of their mind as they slipped the last part into place. The wyrm hugged them with his lower arms while his upper right rubbed their head between the horns. They leaned into the feeling.

“Ready to see if it works?” He asked with a smile.

They nodded, reaching forward to wind up the box before letting it go. A series of simple notes played out of it, crisp and perfect, and the older twin let out a small squeak as their father pulled them into another hug.

“Oh, your mother is going to _love_ this,” he said, smiling down at them. They felt the void in their body settle just a bit at the praise before they turned and wriggled slightly to try to get out of their father’s lap. He let them go, and they dropped to the ground, landing with the gentle tap of their feet.

“Is everything alright?” The Pale King asked, blinking at them as the music box’s melody came to a close.

“Yes,” they signed.

“Are you tired?” He asked them.

“No; I simply have a question,” they replied, their hands jittering slightly.

“I’d be more than happy to answer,” the King replied, smiling at them as he slipped out of his chair and kneeled down to their level.

“Father, I hear people calling my younger sibling ‘Ghost.’ I hear them calling themself ‘Ghost’,” they signed. “Am I allowed to have my own name?”

“Absolutely!” The wyrm responded, his glow brightening for a moment before it calmed down. “Anything you want, my child.” He ran a thumb across their cheek as he scratched their chin.

“Can- can I be called ‘Hollow’?” They asked with shaking hands.

“ ‘Hollow’?” Their father repeated, smiling at them. “It’s beautiful.”

They huffed out a sigh of relief, the void within them stilling.

“Is there any particular reason why?” The Pale King asked, and their void kicked right back into its previous, tumultuous state.

They slowly reached a fist up before turning it towards themself as they bent their head, proceeding to knock on their forehead three times. The noise sounded out twice for each knock with a subtle echo from within their own skull.

“It sounds hollow,” they signed slowly.

The Pale King found himself unable to stop himself from scooping up his child into a tight hug. “I think it’s the most perfectly-chosen name I’ve ever heard,” he said.

Hollow hugged back, drawing a heart on the King’s back as he held them.

“I love you too, Hollow,” the wyrm responded.

And they felt the exact opposite of hollow in that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> ghost is a kleptomaniac and i will not be convinced otherwise  
> also i think i have a thing for telepathically-linked siblings
> 
> @pocket-infinity on tumblr


End file.
